


A Simple Plan

by Laylah



Category: Infinite Undiscovery
Genre: Cliche, M/M, Missing Scene, Transformation, Trapped, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-15
Updated: 2010-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 05:37:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed peers out across the desert, but he doesn't go anywhere. The lunar rain is still falling, splashing against the sand. "Guess we're stuck here until that stops," he says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Simple Plan

They're crossing the desert, running -- not a fast fleeing-from-ogres run, a steady I-could-do-this-all-day run -- when the lunar rain starts to fall. Capell slows to a halt, nervous, and looks over at the rest of his group. They're too far from Fayel to be able to backtrack easily by now. Maybe they could just back up a little bit and stop to rest for a while, and wait for the rain to let up again.

"We have to press on," Touma says. Easy for _him_ to say, and Komachi's going to be on his side, of course. "There's no place to take shelter here, and the heat is too punishing in the middle of the day." Okay, he's got a point there.

"Ed?" Capell says. He looks over.

Ed's flushed from the heat -- hopefully just from the heat -- and a little wild-eyed, but he just says, "We should hurry."

Great. "Okay," Capell says. "We don't stop to fight anything, then, just -- just keep moving."

"Right," Ed says. He turns, and they take off.

It's a simple plan. It's about as simple as plans _get_. So of course it goes wrong.

They keep moving, west across the desert, and then they get to the dunes, where the sand is looser and the footing is worse. The lunar rain's still falling, hissing down and splashing in little sparks of golden light against the sand. Capell tries to keep an eye out, watching to see how bad it's getting. Komachi's starting to show little feathery wings by the time they get over the first set of dunes. Ed's are already obvious. They _really_ need to hurry.

And then, when Capell's distracted worrying about Ed vermifying, the wind changes direction and the sandstorm howls down on them. Komachi calls, "Look out!" and maybe Touma says something, too, but the wind snatches the words and Capell can't make them out. Sand stings his face, and he throws his arm up to shield his eyes, stumbling forward. He staggers, trying to get out of the wind's path before it scours him raw. The bright blur of Ed's wings shines to his left, and he heads toward it, the clearest thing he can see in the haze of dust. He hopes Touma and Komachi are following.

When he stumbles free of the storm, though, Ed's the only one there. And really, Ed doesn't look so good. His wings stretch and flicker behind him, bright gold, nearly as big as they're going to get. "I know this feeling," he says when Capell meets his eyes. "I've felt this way before."

"Yeah," Capell says, smiling nervously. "I, um, I remember! So. Let's keep going!"

The sandstorm makes it impossible to go back the way they came, so Capell figures it's time for a new plan: get Ed out of the rain before he turns _completely murderous_ , and hope Touma's doing the same with Komachi, and they can meet up with the other groups when everybody gets to the port. Capell takes off running again, and this time it's a little more like the fleeing-from-ogres run. Not that Ed is an ogre. Well, he's almost as mean as one when he tries, but he's a lot prettier. More handsome. Whatever. Less panicking, more running.

"So much _power_ ," Ed says from behind him. Too close behind him. It's hard to tell if Ed's excited or freaked out by it. Ed's weird like that. Capell picks up the pace a little more.

Technically the desert doesn't go on forever, but Capell's starting to feel like it might as well. Ed's going to fully vermify any minute now and kill him and leave him out here for the dune harpies to pick his bones clean and he never should have let himself be dragged into the Liberation Force in the first place and it looks like there's a cave up ahead.

Well.

"You see that?" he asks, glancing back at Ed. He wishes he hadn't looked. There's shadowy smoke crawling over Ed's skin, and his eyes look too bright.

"I see it," Ed says. His voice comes out in a growl, and he's fumbling for the last of their lunar suppressants. He cracks it open. "I think I'll make it. Hurry!"

Capell doesn't need to be told twice. He sprints for the cave as fast as he can with the sandy footing and his stupid armor weighing him down. His lungs ache, but he can die of exhaustion after he _doesn't_ die of Ed going crazy on him.

He ducks into the shadow of the cave with Ed right behind him, and not a second too soon. When he looks over at Ed again, he can see Ed's eyes glowing in the relative darkness in here, and Ed's wings have little black streaks running through them. Capell flinches. "You still with me?" he says.

"I want to kill something," Ed says, still in that low growl.

"Right," Capell says. "I bet you do." He gulps air, tries not to listen to the little voice that wants him to just run. There's nowhere to go but out into the desert again, and Ed would chase him down, and with the lunar rain still falling -- running is a bad plan right now. "Okay, well, ah, how about we just try to stay calm right now," he says. He fumbles for his flute, trying not to make any sudden movements. It's like dealing with a guard dog. If a guard dog wore chain mail and carried a sword as tall as he was. "I'm going to just...see if this helps, okay?"

Ed laughs, and that's maybe the creepiest part so far. "Go ahead and try it," he says. It sounds like a challenge.

Capell leans back against the wall of the cave -- he'd sit down, except that he can tell Ed's too keyed up for that, and he doesn't want to put himself at that much of a disadvantage. He takes a few deep breaths, settling his fingers into place, and raises the flute to his lips.

 _Mare Lunaris_ is one of the trickier tunes he knows how to play, so it's sort of not fair that he only ever needs to play it when he's already under a lot of stress. The first few bars feel really stilted, the transitions between the notes forced and harsh. Fortunately Ed's not much of a music critic, and Capell finds his stride a little better once he's kept going for a minute. The notes smooth out, phrases coming more naturally, and he starts to sink into the calm of performing.

It looks like it's working, too. Ed's not really relaxing, exactly, but he looks less like he's spoiling for a fight, and the really creepy stuff -- the glowing eyes, the squirming shadows -- is fading off him. Capell plays until the last of the smoky shadows have gone, and Ed's wings have started to shrink down again. He lowers the flute after that, carefully. "How're you doing?" he says. "I can keep going, but I'd really like to get a drink first, if that's okay."

Ed shakes his head. "You've done enough," he says. "I'll be all right." He scrubs at his face with one hand, like he's just woken up. "I'm...the worst is over."

"Okay," Capell says slowly, nodding. He puts his flute away and goes through his bag for something to drink. They have a few flasks of sweet tea that Aya made for everyone to take along on this trip, and he opens one. It's warm, but it tastes pretty good, and it feels great on his parched throat. He makes himself sip slowly, to get the most out of it.

"Is there more of that?" Ed asks after a minute.

"Oh," Capell says, "sorry, here." He holds out the flask. For a second Ed looks surprised, but by the time Capell figures out why -- he was probably expecting Capell to just get him one of his own -- he's taking it anyway.

He tilts the flask up to drink, and Capell watches his throat work. He has stubble just starting to come in, and a drop of sweat trickles down the line of his throat unevenly. Capell looks away.

"Thanks," Ed says when he's done. The growling tone is gone, but his voice is still low and sort of hoarse. "That's twice you've saved my life."

Capell laughs nervously. "Come on," he says. "That was _my_ life I was saving just now." He cringes a little in anticipation, because before Ed would definitely have yelled at him for that --

But when he looks Ed's smiling, like he thinks Capell's being silly but he doesn't mind too much. "Both of us, then," he says. "Thanks."

"Um. Sure," Capell says, for lack of any better ideas.

Ed peers out across the desert, but he doesn't go anywhere. The lunar rain is still falling, splashing against the sand. "Guess we're stuck here until that stops," he says.

Capell sags with relief. "Sounds good to me," he says. He starts unbuckling his armor, since they're probably going to be here for a while. The stuff's never comfortable to sit around in. He makes sure to put the pieces aside carefully, though, because Ed made it for him and he wouldn't want to seem ungrateful. "Hope the others don't go on without us."

"Nobody's going anywhere without you," Ed says. "Liberator."

"Oh," Capell says. "Right." That's still weird, and he doesn't feel much like a Liberator. He can't tell if Ed's being mean about it or not.

Before he figures it out, Ed turns away. He paces to the back of the cave -- it isn't far, really only about three steps. His wings glow and flicker, but don't really shed any light. There's a little drift of sand piled up against the back wall, and he kicks it once, so a tiny cloud of dust puffs up. He turns again and paces back to the front of the cave. "This is maddening," he says.

Well, that's never good. "Um," Capell says. "Yeah?"

Ed must catch his tone, because he looks over. "I'm in control of myself," he says. "You're not in danger from me. I just --" He looks down at his hands. "I can feel the power running through me. All this energy, and I can't do anything with it."

He should really just offer to play a few more verses of _Mare Lunaris_. That's the sensible thing to do. Maybe it's the heat, or maybe it's the fact that Ed just more or less told him he was safe, or maybe it's another in the long series of bad ideas he's had lately. Capell says, "You could always try to work it off."

"In here?" Ed says. He glances around the little cave and smiles wryly. "There's no room to train in here."

And _that_ is a perfect opportunity for Capell to pretend that's all he meant. He really should. But he's feeling reckless, and Ed's not bad looking, if you like the serious tough-guy type. And he's still pretty sure he could talk his way out of it if Ed really took it badly. "You could come over here," he says, "and we could figure something out."

Ed stares at him for long enough that he thinks he should probably pretend he was joking, and then says, "Capell?" Sort of quiet, sort of...nervous.

"Just...an idea," Capell says. He remembers, too late, how cranky Ed got when Capell tried to tease him about reading up on dating technique. "Um. A silly idea! Sorry. I shouldn't have --" and then he stops talking, because Ed's taking a step closer. Not fast, like he's thinking about hitting Capell, but sort of careful and slow.

Ed's a pretty big guy, taller than Capell and built like the blacksmith he is, and usually Capell tries not to get himself mixed up with guys like that, because they're high on his list of people he doesn't want angry at him. Sure, they're not the only dangerous ones, but when they _do_ get mad --

He's maybe thinking too much about people being mad at him, when it looks like Ed's not upset about the idea at all. He's meeting Capell's eyes like this is really serious, like it's something important, and Capell figures he probably should have expected that. He licks his lips.

Ed takes one more step closer, so they're nearly touching, and leans down to kiss him. Somehow Capell wasn't expecting there to be kissing.

After a few seconds he's pretty sure he would have been missing out. Ed takes a little bit to really warm up to the kiss, but then he's putting his whole body into it, pulling Capell close. He kisses hard, hungry, his teeth scraping Capell's lip. His mouth is warm even compared with the desert air, and he tastes like something sharp and almost too bright. All that lunar power, Capell thinks. Even secondhand it makes him jittery -- no wonder Ed couldn't sit still.

The kiss has Capell off-balance, and he takes a step back. Ed comes with him, pinning him against the rock wall of the cave, and this jolt runs down Capell's spine that's about half terror and half thrill. Ed has him pinned and is kissing him like he's the only thing in the world that matters. Capell's getting hard, and when he pushes back with his hips, Ed groans. That tips the balance, and Capell decides this is awesome.

He nips at Ed's tongue, pushing his hand between them and fumbling until he finds the stiff shape of Ed's cock through his pants. When he rubs the length of it, Ed makes a noise again, rocking against him. The wings still spreading from Ed's back flicker.

Capell pulls back from the kiss, with some effort. His mouth feels tender, lips swollen from the force of the kiss. "Give me a little room?" he says. "So I can, ah, do something about this." He squeezes.

"Gods," Ed says. "Yes." He steps back a little, so Capell reaches for his belt with both hands. The look on his face is pretty incredible, wanting and... _intense_ is the only word Capell can come up with. Nobody looks at him like that, like he's everything they ever wanted. Even Faina looks at him like she's hoping for something, waiting for him to do something -- and actually, maybe this is a bad time to be thinking about Faina. About anybody else.

His hands feel like they're shaking a little as he tugs Ed's pants open and pushes them down. Ed's cock looks just as big as it feels, thick and ruddy. It's going to be kind of a challenge. Capell wraps a hand around it, stroking the skin back from the crown.

"Capell," Ed says, kind of breathless like he's swearing.

"Yeah," Capell says, trying to sound more confident than he feels. "I got you."

Ed's breath goes shaky at that, so he figures he must be doing okay. He sinks to his knees -- and sort of misses his old clothes, because the trousers were thicker fabric and the padding would be nice about now. But still, he's lived through worse. He has more interesting stuff to think about, right?

He leans in slowly and just licks at Ed's cock at first, tasting it, getting it wet. Ed's hand clutches at his shoulder, too hard for a second -- Capell flinches, and Ed backs off. "You --" Ed says, and Capell opens his mouth wide to take Ed's cock in.

The way that makes Ed lose his train of thought and just whimper is pretty cool, honestly. Capell closes his eyes and pushes down further, letting Ed's cock slide against his tongue. He doesn't taste so much of magic here, more just sweat and musk and maybe a hint of steel. And he's a pretty appreciative audience, making hungry noises and holding onto Capell's shoulder -- not so tight as at first, but with this repeated little flex of his fingers that he probably doesn't even know he's doing.

And once Capell manages to get into a decent rhythm, he starts to enjoy himself, too. This is one of the things he actually has some experience with -- it wasn't tricky to figure out, and it's an easy way to get somebody satisfied before they start trying to get his clothes off, and then wondering where his lunaglyph is. Sometimes it's more fun than others, but this time...well, he sort of _likes_ Ed, and that's helping, and the way Ed acts like this is a big deal feels good, too. Capell can't help showing off a little, taking Ed's cock as deep as he can stand it, teasing the crown with his tongue when he pulls back. Ed's moaning -- moaning his _name_ \-- wow.

He reaches down and starts fumbling his own pants open, because that just made it really, really good. Before he's done more than get his hand on his cock, Ed's stiffening in his mouth and spilling, bitter and hot. Capell tries not to choke, swallows as best he can, sucking and teasing at the slit until he's sure he's gotten all of it.

Ed's gasping for breath when he pulls back, face flushed, eyes dark. "Capell," he says.

"Not bad, huh?" Capell says.

Ed kneels with him, leaning in to kiss him again, and Capell almost flinches away, because he's just been sucking Ed's cock and his mouth has to taste like -- but Ed doesn't _care_ , he realizes. Ed's tongue is in Capell's mouth and he's making this growling noise in his throat that should be terrifying but is hot instead. He reaches down and pushes Capell's hand out of the way, wraps his own hand around Capell's cock and starts stroking, rough, fast. It feels amazing. Capell clings to his shoulders -- he almost expects to see Ed's wings still there, but no, the effect's worn off and this is just...what Ed wants to be doing, and -- wow. Ed strokes him and Capell pushes into his hand, and for a plan that went so badly? This has actually turned out all right.


End file.
